Gulzar. In a few lines addressed to his only child Meghna, he described himself as someone walking towards the sunset, and her as walking towards the sunrise. That is perhaps the divide that separates the young and the old and explains in part why they see the world and life differently– for they are indeed going in different directions. When I set out to write about the senior citizens who live in our midst, I remembered some of the old men and women of my own family. My paternal grandfather, who almost ‘hit a century’, (according to one of my irreverent cousins) is one man who ‘raged against the dying light’ and valiantly battled against the debility of old age. Choosing to live alone, he lived a strictly regimented life, with the exact time apportioned for pottering in his garden, reading the newspaper, bath-time, puja, meal times and his evening walk. He took good care for himself, managed his finances, zealously guarded his privacy and was snobbish as only those who worked under the British can be. My maternal grandfather was one of the saintliest men I’ve known, though, being a Vaishnavite, I’ve never seen him bow his head to any god or goddess. But he embodied a quality of detachment and the older he grew, the more indifferent he became to money and material possessions. There was something so spartan and other worldly about him that he even stopped making any demands for love and kinship from his own family. A gentle and wise philosopher who gained wisdom from Nature and people rather than books, he left the world with the same quiet gentleness with which he inhabited it.Most younger people are deferent to the aged because it is considered proper to do so. Many children look after their aged parents but out of a sense of duty rather than filial love. There is an unspoken air of resentment as busy sons and daughter have to take time out to care for their frail, helpless and ailing parents. There have been cases of old parents turned out of the house, abandoned in railway stations or even threatened with physical violence for refusing to sign on property papers.
As if it was not enough being treated with such callousness by their own family, the old man or woman is almost a persona non grata in our society. They are the invisible ones, the forgotten and grey entities who are shoved, pushed or jostled on our busy pavements, for whose feeble, tottering steps no car slows down. There are no ramps or special lifts in our public buildings to help them, there are no counsellors and psychologists trained to handle their problems and unlike in the west, there is no social security system to help them cope with the rising costs of living and healthcare.
Yet, in spite of all these daunting problems, the senior citizen today is not the helpless, decrepit wreck who spends interminable hours ruminating over the past and dwelling bitterly on the aches and pains, the wear and tear of the body. There is a new senior citizen today, who is healthy, energetic, abuzz with ideas, not afraid to go off on junkets abroad, active participants in community affairs, and even working at a new job after having retired from government or company service. They are well read, net savvy, tuned into what is contemporary, willing to listen and accept the views of the young and are neither emotionally or financially dependent on their offspring.
Like Sophocles, the Greek philosopher, they believe that ‘No man loves life like him who’s growing old.’ Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, gets it right on cue when he says, ‘I truly believe that age, if you’re healthy, is just a number.’ These new confident, fun-loving senior citizens, undeterred by time, or the frailties of the flesh, continue to expand their horizons, broaden the limits of their experience, keeping their minds active and open to all that life still has to offer them. They live out the truism that in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. Agatha Christie, the most celebrated crime writer of all, describes old age as a second blooming, a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts. Albert Einstein, in a letter to his friend Otto Juluisburger, wrote: ‘People like you and I never grow old because we are like curious children before the great mystery into which we are born.’
Who are these inspiring people who put the young to shame with their stamina and vitality, their willingness to plunge into adventure? You will see them all around you – Pulin Das, jauntily swinging his tennis racquet at the India Club, Tulsi Govinda Baruah delivering witty and thought – provoking speeches at every important meeting in the city, journalist Dhiren Chakravarty rushing through a mad whirl of activities with the velocity of a tornado, former chief secretary HN Das travelling around the world to experience the joys of visiting museums, palaces, theatres, art galleries and writing about them, Dhiren Baruah, campaigning with the ferocity of a veteran war horse in his ‘Save Guwahati, Build Guwahati’ campaign, the ageless Neelpawan Baruah gently guiding children in exploring the world of colour and form. As Thoreau wrote, ‘None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” Each of these men (we will come to the women later) meet life head on, unfazed by the prospect of mortality, living out their lives as if it were spring and not autumn or winter.
In Guwahati, there are several senior citizen groups or associations which serve as a meeting place for the aged, like-minded people, protect their interests, and also give them the leverage to take active part in the community, either by supporting certain causes or rallying together to protest against any form of injustice.
Among them is the Guwahati Senior Citizens’ Association which is nine years old. At present its President is Kamaleswar Bora, with Dhiren Chakravarty officiating as the secretary and Prof Mahesh Bhuyan as the working president. The members meet at 10.30 am on every third Saturday of the month at the Pensioners’ Bhavan. There is a free exchange of views on issues concerning the State and the nation. As Dhiren Chakravarty elaborates: “We strongly protested against the treaty between the Centre and Nagaland by which Nagaland encroached on Assam’s border areas. We not only took the help of the media to publicise the issue, but also went to meet the Prime Minister and submitted a memorandum. We have also raised our voices against the irregularities in the Assam Public Service Commission and Guwahati Municipality. We organised a huge procession in 2001 against the invasion of Iraq, and raised funds to help the victims of the Gujarat earthquake. We regularly work to help flood victims and have so far organised over 100 health camps in the villages. Eminent physicians, who are also members of our association, have treated the rural patients. We have been vocal in our demands for better civic amenities in Guwahati, whether it is the drainage system, roads or the bus system.”
At a personal level, Dhiren Chakravarty and Hari Parasad Chaliha, retired bureaucrat and writer, reveal their personal mantra for an active and fulfilling old age. ‘Ultimately,’ asserts Chakravarty, ‘Age is a state of mind. I feel no different today physically or mentally than when I was a young man. My mother lived to the age of 95 and my maternal grandmother was 104, so I suppose I have to thank my gene pool for this. I do not take an extra spoonful of food than what is necessary and am a vegetarian. I don’t drink, smoke or chew betelnut. I am always in bed by 11 pm. I seldom feel tired or tense about any problem. You have to cultivate the art of being happy. Life is no doubt full of difficulties. But it’s your attitude that matters. A man may feel sorry for not having shoes, then he sees a man without a leg and realises how lucky he is. Remember, forty per cent of India’s population are aged. Globally, there are fifty crores of senior citizens in the world. With increase in life expectancy, there are a huge number of people who have to be supported by the young. There are bodies like Helpage which are doing good work in addressing the concerns of senior citizens.”
Hari Prasad Chaliha, who retired as the Chief Liaison Officer to the Chief Minister, admits to being even busier after superannuation. He is a book reviewer for this paper and has published thirteen books so far, the latest being Asamar Sahitya Sanskritir Samridhyit Prashashak Aru Aarakshi – which offers pen portraits of 153 eminent men of letters. He has also written for the Sahitya Akademi and is involved with the Asam Sahitya Sabha’s compilation of a writers’ encyclopaedia. He has been a vegetarian for three decades, credits punctuality as the key to his success and avoids the limelight, quietly going about his work. A teetotaller, he is content that his three children are well settled.
Then there is the All Assam Government Pensioners’ Association which has a full fledged Pensioners’ Bhavan, reported to be the biggest and perhaps the only kind in the country, at Chandmari, Guwahati which also runs a free medical centre with the help of eminent doctors like Dr Alaka Goswami, Dr Dulal Borkotoky, Dr Rajen Pathak and Dr NN Medhi, among others. This association has succeeded in raising the pension benefits of many retired government employees who had retired before 1989. Its president at the moment is Durge Prasad Neog and Ananda C Bhuyan is its secretary. Dr Kiran Chandra Sarma, who is the Vice President of the Guwahati branch, says, “We are persuading g the Assam government to set up a full fledged geriatric medicine department in the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, as well as a special ward for treating senior citizens. It has not materialised as yet but the State government has allotted three and half kottahs of land near the Pensioners’ Bhavan at Chandmari, Guwahati where we plan to construct a centre which will also have a diagnostic clinic and the services of several doctors. We need about 3.5 crores and have approached the NEC for the purpose. To be named Niramoy Bhavan, the Assam Government has so far allotted 21 lakhs for the project. The Government of India has envisaged the creation of an old age home in every district. The State Government too has allotted a plot of land in Guwahati to set up an old age home. Not many senior citizens are aware that according to the Welfare of Parents and Older People’s Act 2007, the son/daughter and/or successors are responsible for looking after the aged parents and any contravention of this is a penal offence. Such cases are handled by a District Magistrate and cannot be appealed against in the High Court.”
So this then, is the portrait of the senior citizens I have met – remarkable senior citizens who are a mixture of tough pragmatism and innocent hope, their desire to be useful to society tempered with a willingness to work towards personal fulfilment. These brave, unflappable people are certainly not walking towards the sunset. They are climbing hills with the anticipation of seeing the limitless horizon beyond. In the next part of this series, we will meet the members of another club whose members are grey-haired but are as fun as their teenage grandchildren.
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Indrani Raimedhi